[Bug]: 7.2.6 VRDE not working

[tomuta]

Version

trunk/main

Host OS Type

Linux

Host OS name + version

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Host Architecture

x86

Guest OS Type

Windows

Guest Architecture

x86

Guest OS name + version

Windows 11

Component

RDP

What happened?

I am unable to get VRDE to work since upgrading from 7.0.26 directly to 7.2, and my VM running on a headless machine will not enable vrde. As per a comment by @thedisbo1125 in #508 it sounds like this feature was moved to the open source base package. But it seems to be broken as I have not been able to figure out how to make it work. I also don't see anything new in the documentation, suggesting it should still work the same. My VM logs this every time:

00:00:00.037453 VirtualBox VM 7.2.6 r172322 linux.amd64 (Jan 20 2026 17:07:15) release log
...
00:00:00.043343 Installed Extension Packs:
00:00:00.043362   Oracle VirtualBox Extension Pack (Version: 7.2.6 r172322; VRDE Module: ; Crypto Module: )
00:00:00.044972 Console: Machine state changed to 'Starting'
00:00:00.047360 VRDE: VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension is not available.

Even though it's not part of the extensions anymore, I made sure the version of the extension pack matches:

$ VBoxManage list extpacks
Extension Packs: 1
Pack no. 0: Oracle VirtualBox Extension Pack
Version: 7.2.6
Revision: 172322
Edition:
Description: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure integration, PXE ROM.
VRDE Module:
Crypto Module:
Usable: true
Why unusable:

I cannot connect to it and netstat confirms it's definitely not listening on the port that I configured. VBoxManage showvminfo (while the VM is not running) does show it as enabled and on the port I configured:

VRDE:                        enabled (Address 0.0.0.0, Ports 3380, MultiConn: on, ReuseSingleConn: off, Authentication type: null)

I tried uninstalling the ext pack, re-installing it, uninstalling virtualbox entirely and re-installing it, to no avail. The logs show the same message on every boot and I am not able to connect to it. Does anyone have any suggestions? I was not able to find any suggestions on google that solved the issue. I need VRDE because the guest still has the old guest additions installed which basically causes it to crash during boot, with VRDE I would be able to boot into safe mode, install the new guest additions and reboot once more and everything would be fine.

VBox.log

How can we reproduce this?

Install VirtualBox 7.2 on Ubuntu 24.04, create a VM, enable VRDE.

Did you upload all of your necessary log files, screenshots, etc.?

• Yes, I've uploaded all pertinent files to this issue.

[thedisbo1125]

tomuta,

are you trying to connect from the VirtualBox host or a separate machine? If separate, what is the OS (Linux, Windows, MacOS)?

is the security method TLS or RDP? If TLS, remember the cert will be self signed and you might not get a prompt to trust it depending on how the RDP clients runs. I run freerdp on my main workstation and if I don't run it from a command prompt, won't get prompted to trust the cert.

Also, I ran netstat without any params and it didn't show the server listening on 3380. I had to use -l (see attached pic).

thedisbo1125

[AlexanderEichner]

Do you have a VBoxVRDP.so file in /usr/lib/virtualbox/ ?

[AlexanderEichner]

You could also try installing the generic *.run package, which works for me. I can't try the *.deb one currently due to the lack of a test system.

[tomuta]

are you trying to connect from the VirtualBox host or a separate machine? If separate, what is the OS (Linux, Windows, MacOS)?

I am trying to connect from another box, but even on the same box it doesn't work because netstat shows that nothing is listening on this port.

is the security method TLS or RDP? If TLS, remember the cert will be self signed and you might not get a prompt to trust it depending on how the RDP clients runs. I run freerdp on my main workstation and if I don't run it from a command prompt, won't get prompted to trust the cert.

Because the system is in an isolated environment I had it set up with --vrdeauthtype null. This worked fine in 7.0. In the meanwhile I also tried downgrading to 7.1 and it's apparently also broken (nothing is listening on this port). Only after I downgraded to 7.0 it started listening on this port and I was able to connect via rdp.

Also, I ran netstat without any params and it didn't show the server listening on 3380. I had to use -l (see attached pic).

I used netstat -ltpn which did not list the port, neither listening locally nor globally. I have since managed to upgrade to 7.2 (by uninstalling the guest additions while on 7.0, upgrading to 7.2, then installing the guest additions again), but VRDE is still not listening (which means I can't connect to it if anything goes wrong).

Do you have a VBoxVRDP.so file in /usr/lib/virtualbox/ ?

I do:

$ find /usr -name VBoxVRDP.so
/usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxVRDP.so

You could also try installing the generic *.run package, which works for me. I can't try the *.deb one currently due to the lack of a test system.

I did not install it with the .run file, I installed it via apt:

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list 
deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/oracle_vbox.gpg] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian noble contrib

[thedisbo1125]

I did a fresh install of Ubuntu Server 24.04.4 LTS. and VirtualBox 7.2.6 from the deb package (manual download), didn't install extension pack. I created a new VM, enabled RDP and powered on.

testuser@testserver:$ vboxmanage createvm --name=testbox --platform-architecture=x86 --ostype=windows --register
Virtual machine 'testbox' is created and registered.
UUID: f9a49960-f677-458a-b0cc-6c220c122202
Settings file: '/home/testuser/VirtualBox VMs/testbox/testbox.vbox'
testuser@testserver:$ vboxmanage modifyvm testbox --vrde=on --vrde-port=3380 --vrde-auth-type=null
testuser@testserver:$ vboxmanage startvm testbox --type=headless
Waiting for VM "testbox" to power on...
VM "testbox" has been successfully started.
testuser@testserver:$

I was able to connect using freerdp, just had to trust the self signed cert.

I then uninstalled VirtualBox, deleted the testbox, setup the apt source like you have and reinstalled it.

I created the textbox again, and was able to RDP to it, just had to remove the previous trusted cert from freerdp config dir.

Only other suggestions I have, try assigning an IP address to the VM's RDP setup and change Security method to RDP.

[thedisbo1125]

Thought of one other thing, if the IP address set on the RDP is not configured on the host, the VM will start, but not provide any errors that the RDP setup is misconfigured.